Cubitt: 'Tell me about inception' is his first question in every interview
“My first question with every interview is tell me about inception. So why do you want to do this so badly that you're willing to break through walls and spend years in the cold as an unknown at the shot for the shot of being a successful entrepreneur?”
Cubitt: Mistral Invests Small at Pre-Seed and Significantly More at Series A
“What we do is we invest upside down. So we invest a small amount at the pre-seed stage and work very, very hard with our entrepreneurs to get to a series A. And at the series A, we invest significantly more than we did at the seed stage.”
Cubitt: Consistently Picking Seed-Stage Winners Is Nearly Impossible
“So our view is that it's nearly impossible to pick winners at the seed stage. There's a lot of memory, I guess you'd say, and hard won battles that, that help guide our decision. But at the end of the day, We are humble enough to know that it's impossible to p…”
Cubitt: Poor founder communication with employees and investors signals startup failure
“So it's the ego needs to be checked at the door problem where you have overzealous founders that, Don't communicate with their employees. They don't build a culture of success and winning. They don't communicate with their investing partners. And you can tell …”
Cubitt: Only 10 to 15 Percent of His Deals Exited Highly Positively
“To the extent that I've done 50 or 60 deals in my career, you know, there's been a lot of scars, a lot of learning, right? So probably only 10 or 15% of those have exited in a very positive way, and that's the reality of the economics.”
Cubitt: Founders Who Dismiss External Feedback and Prioritize Ego Fail
“And at its core coachability is, is sort of a willingness to be introspective and a willingness to respect feedback, whether it's from the market, from your employees, from your customers, from your investing partners. And so the entrepreneur who Dismisses all…”
Cubitt: Great Founders Absorb Investor Advice but Dictate Their Own Path
“I prefer the ones that take it in consume it and then dictate their own path, not necessarily mine. Cause the fact is, you know, they're qualified to run their business. I'm not, I'm qualified to advise and be a mentor, but I'm not qualified to run their busin…”
Cubitt: Hands-on VC work with struggling startups can preserve half the fund
“And we think that the economics of that provide us with a 50 or a hundred percent of AUM payback. And what I mean by that is, let's say you have a hundred million dollar fund and you have a company that you've put ten million dollars in. And if you walk away, …”
Cubitt: Replacing a startup CEO rarely turns out well
“We can make a change at the CEO level on occasion. Not my favorite thing to do because I think it rarely turns out well, but there are things we can do to right the ship.”
Cubitt: I study startup failure clues more than success indicators
“So I listened to a lot of podcasts and books around startups, successes and failures, looking for clues on how companies can fail more than looking for success indicators.”